I really like all of the presentations so far. It teaches me about other poets and their poetry in a more interesting way than just reading about poets in Koch's books. I also wish I planned my presentation better. I was really surprised by how fast 10minutes goes by. At first I thought I would be under time and in the end I was way over. All in all I like the presentations from my classmates and I look forward to watching and listening to more.

I feel that I am not doing so well with revising my poems. I think it might do with the fact that some of them are a bit on the cliche side. I am taking everyone's suggestions into consideration. I think that the most difficult poem that I am revising is about the gay marriage. I was trying to make it seem more satirical but, I am not sure I really achieved that. I tried writing it from a priests or God's point of view but, it really didn't work out the way I wanted it to.  Other than that I have really enjoyed the class and have learned quite a bit from it and I am hoping to take another poetry class sometime in the future.

In all, I can sincerely say I appreciate the workshop process. The feedback from my classmates often allowed me to take my poems to the level I wanted them to go. At firs it is nerve-racking because if anybody is like me, putting your writing out there for others to see is a huge milestone. Usually I use my writing as an escape since I'm not too fond of expressing myself in general, so my poetry is usually raw and personal. My writing is almost like a baby.

Hearing people critique my work wasn't as bad as I thought, usually people understood where I was trying to go, and mostt of the time if there was something not everyone agreed with in my poetry, they always followed it up with something that they liked, or something they noticed within the poem that they felt I could enhance. However, as I listened to other people critique writing other than my own I sometimes people were reading too far into a poem that didn't necessarily have a deep message, it was just meant to be simple. I also felt that too often, people wanted the poet to spell everything out for them with concrete details,which can take away from the poem sometimes, and I felt like people don't know the difference between a poem that needs to be elaborated and poem that doesn't i.e. a poem that is meant to open the eyes of its audience.

I really enjoyed this class for the most part. It's true the mass amounts of writing has been pretty strenuous, but combined with the reading and the workshops, it's also given me a chance to practice a lot of different techniques and tricks that I might never have thought of on my own. All in all I can honestly say I'll treasure the input from here and from the workshops, even if some ideas were hammered home with exaggeration to make an easily recognized point to start working from. I guess I'll just leave off with one of my favorites of the poems I've been working on lately.

False Fit

One of the poets I chose for the Oral Presentation was Claude McKay and I seriously dislike the majority of the poems in the book I choose. The majority of his poems are more like songs than actual poems and are lacking in concrete language. EVERY SINGLE ONE of these poems has almost exactly the same rhyme scheme too and it seems like nearly all his poetry is about the same or a similar topic. There was very little variation from poem to poem and it made the book incredibly annoying to read. Even his poems that actually had concrete language weren't very good and were still mostly abstraction. Usually I can enjoy just about any poem, even those that I don't understand, because the concrete language gives it imagery and substance, but these poems... Check it out: "In de evenin' we went walkin' / An' de sweet sound of his voice / as we laughed or kept a-talkin'".. The entire poem is like that, and it spans 3 pages of the book. The language alone makes it almost impossible to derive any meaning out of them. I got absolutely nothing from the majority of these "poems".

Wow, I'm so glad work shops are all done.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Hopefully I can get all my re-writes done soon.  I'll try to look at everyones critical responses to see how I should I improve them.  It suck that we only got to get three poems in, when the portfolio is four poems.  How lame is that right?  And some people got to sneak in an extra poem by default.  That didn't seem fair at all.  Is anyone else having trouble getting all this done.  I have so many other classes asking for so many other assignments all in this last week.  So very crazy right.  I am almost done with my power point presentation  for tuesday.  I hope I am under 10 but above 8 min.  I guess i'll have to time myself when it's all done.  I think it was too much asking for 250 words for each 15 pages.  Trying to think about what to say in all that was in my opinion a big waste of time when i could have just been working on the presentation.  Or other work from other classes.  And on top of that, I had to remember to get this blog in too.  There are too many thing to think about getting in on these last weeks to worry about extra little knit picky stuff like this blog.  but here it is.   In my honest opinion, I didn't think the blog aspect of the class was effective at all, but more so distracting.  Most people are just commenting their two comments they need , writing some quick blog in the same way on pretty much the same topics.  Muse writes, workshops, presentations, and such.  all the same.  I doubt anyone other than the teacher is reading these except skimming to respond quickly to someones post just get it done.  This was my hardest class this semester and it was a gen-ed for me.  Why was this my hardest class???  It shouldn't have been.  But all these little extra things made me really hate poetry and not enjoy this class that much at all.  And that's the Double TRUTH RUTH!!

Learning about poetry is something that I have found to be very fulfilling so far, but at the same time it can be very frustrating for me. One of my big issues is with muse writing. I think muse writing is a very interesting approach to writing, but sometimes I get the impression that I'm not getting everything I can out of it. I'm very structured when I write, and usually have a pretty clear idea when it comes to writing. Muse writing is very foreign to me, and I feel like a lot of the time I'm not utilizing it to the fullest. I don't know if anyone else feels about this, but in terms of writing a full poem, I don't think I use muse writing. I more or less think that I have been using my muse to come up with ideas, and then elaborating on those ideas, as opposed to writing whatever comes to my head. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy writing wacky stuff down that comes to my head, and perhaps I just need to work more at it. I've been getting anxious over this lately. I get the idea in my head that I'm not doing it right, and I've also been lacking some inspiration lately. I intend to continue writing over the summer, and the addition of assignments in every class probably has caused this lack of inspiration. I think everything I've learned so far has been beneficial to my development as a writer.

I've read many posts from everybody else on the blog and I noticed how mostly everyone said after doing workshop they weren't as nervous as they thought they were going to be when it came to sharing poems. For me, after workshop I still hate sharing poems that I write. I'm not sure why I disliked it so much because my poems weren't even too personal or anything but every time I shared my poems I was so nervous. Even after I read my poem out loud I just wanted to move on to the next person presenting. I understand the point of workshop and the criticism everyone gave me did really help when it came to revising my poems, but I still did not like reading my poems in class and I don't know if I ever will like sharing my poems. The suggestions I received on my poems were helpful and I think everyone in class really tried to help each other out. I also really enjoyed hearing all the other poems that students wrote and I think this even helped me to notice things i should change in my poems. This aspect of workshop was really helpful and I have learned a lot throughout this experience. It was also interesting to see how each person gave poems their own personal twist even though we all were assigned to do the same muse writes throughout the semester. This was really cool because every poem that was shared was really unique and has the potential to be amazing with revisions.

Much like with my fiction writing, inspiration comes when I least expect it. It's so fun when I listen to music and suddenly get an idea for a character or story. I think what helps me get through poetry, one of my weakest genres, is the fact that while listening to music I can think of a subject to write about. It helps to create a persona of a poem that will be or has been written. I think that aspect of it is a lot of fun. If I tackle poetry the way I do fiction, then perhaps I can jump over the hurdles my mind deem as difficult. I appreciate the critiques, but what I like most is hearing othe peoples poems out loud. It reminds me of storytellying which I fin intriging.

c:

I find my best inspiration for writing is nature. Nature and the natural world. The wind, the rain, trees blowing in that wind and their leaves freckled with water.
The muse can come from anywhere but I feel that the best influences are those that are not contrived forced or human made. The best things in the world are those which just are. Trees rocks grass dirt, emotions, snow thunder, touching... these are all influences which move me to write. I get elated when I am surrounded by trees. I am evan more elated when surrounded by trees and with people. People who can leave behind technology and media influenced gunk. To be truly free is to have no ties to culture and media.
As humans we seem to need these ties though. We have become addicted to the rush of lights and sounds. All too much our minds are turned into zombified electronic drones. We are parasites feeding off of the grid, leeching the power and life from nature.
That Rant aside, I get the most fulfillment from the things that were here before and will be here after (hopefully).

I really enjoyed workshop-And i liked the different types of poetry we got to read this semester. I also thought it would be important to not that all the different type pf poetry was beautiful in it's own way. I thought a certain type of poetry may have been favored in this class-like the really confusing, flowery poems, were the only poetry that received the best complements and praise-but I really enjoyed reading them all this semester!

It also seemed to me that some students may have thought very highly of their own opinions on the poetry being read in class, and mainly focused on what was wrong-in lue or in addition to what was right about the poems. I feel that this may make people feel bad about the poetry, and discourage them-so possibly being a little more thoughtful in their criticisms would have been extremely helpful, and made my personal experience in this class-a better one...

I don't think my class is getting enough out of the workshop. Written comments do help, but discussion about what works and what doesn't is a huge thing. In my screenwriting workshops we really dissect the piece and pick away at it making sure it can be smoothly polished over. In here there is either some issue of talking about other's work or maybe the 8 am start time hinders progress. Anyway, when you are in workshops always voice some sort of opinion, even if it's just something you like. Criticism is key, if you can't take criticism you are going to have a terrible time as a writer, and if you can't help others with their own writing then you may lose them as an outlet for workshops and revisions. And you need other writers for diversity, it will help you dive deeper into styles/inclinations you would like to use but wouldn't figure out without that person's perspective.

I guess what I am saying is loosen up, this is just for the fun of expression and playing with words. If you can't enjoy yourself and really get into the piece or comment on it then you are not fully utilizing the workshop.

I really enjoy revising my poetry. Learning the tactics of revision really helped me because withoutit, I would have probably continued to write the same cliches over and over again. I am now able to take poems that I wrote when I began writing poetry and make them better with more concrete details and visual words to show the reader as opposed to telling them. I really think that learning this as well as doing workshops benefits me a lot as a poet. I am glad that I chose this course.

I am surprised how much I enjoyed workshop! Honestly, I did not think I would and felt that I would have a hard time allowing people to critique my poems along with critiquing other people's poems. I think we have a great diverse class that is not afraid to give their opinions or thoughts, so this always gives us a lot  of feedback with the poems. And like any workshopping session, the class always helps you see things that you were not able to see in your own writing. However, along with helping each other make the poems the best they can be. I also think workshopping other people's work has helped me become a better poet as well. I always have written poetry, but I was nervous to take a class on it and have my work  critiqued. But, now I am very glad I did and definitely think I am going to stick with it as a concentration in my creative writing major. Now time for revision, we will see how this goes!